Dec. 2: It’s a double milestone for nuclear energy. The first man-made sustained nuclear chain reaction was created this day in 1942. And just 15 years later, the first full-scale nuclear power plant went online.
1942: Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard and their colleagues achieve a successful, controlled chain reaction in a squash court underneath the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘President Franklin D’
Dec. 2, 1942: Nuclear Pile Gets Going Dec. 2, 1957: Nuclear Power Goes Online
December 2nd, 2010 |
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Aug. 6, 1945: ‘I Am Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds’
August 6th, 2010 |
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1945: The United States becomes the first (and remains the only) country ever to use an atomic weapon in warfare, obliterating the Japanese city of Hiroshima and instantly killing 70,000 people. (Many thousands more would die later from the effects of radiation poisoning.) Three days later, the port city of Nagasaki is destroyed by a [...]
Feb. 9, 1870: Feds Get on Top of the Weather
February 9th, 2010 |
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1870: President Ulysses S. Grant signs a bill creating what we now call the National Weather Service. Forecasting models were simple but generally effective.
It had been obvious for centuries that weather in North America generally moves from west to east, or southwest to northeast. But other than looking upwind, that knowledge was little help in [...]
5 Reasons that Corporate Media Coverage is Pro-War
December 4th, 2009 |
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Note: McClatchy and several other large news sources are exceptions which have reported well on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. There are five reasons that the mainstream media is worthless. 1. Self-Censorship by Journalists Initially, there is tremend…
Oct. 19, 1941: Electric Turbines Get First Wind
October 19th, 2009 |
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1941: The Smith-Putnam Wind Turbine feeds AC power to the electric grid, the first wind machine ever to do so.
The unprecedented project was built up from nothing, practically conjured, by Palmer Putnam, an MIT-trained geologist with no formal education or experience in wind power. He was a fascinating character, a clean-energy entrepreneur 70 years ahead [...]